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17 July 2014

Let's cook!!

In some posts, and on my Amazon bio page, and Twitter,
and FB… I have claimed that I can cook.

Well, I can.

For some people it is as simple as following a recipe,
step by step and using exact weight measures, but for me it isn’t. And truth
be told, I hate recipes. So when I do cook, I follow the mood and setting I am
in at that moment.

So…today…I will try and share one of those with you.

A basic lasagna…

Ingredients:

Two bottles of red wine

Enough Mincemeat (Ground beef)

One Largeonion

Two Cloves of garlic

A bunch of fresh basil

A bit of fresh rosemary

Sachet/small
can Tomato paste/puree

A few zucchini/courgette/baby marrows

A green/red/yellow pepper

Ample grated cheese

Sheets of lasagna

Method:

This is the part where you need to pay close attention, and remember that tasting food while it cooks is a must…

·Pour a glass of
wine. Make sure it isn’t mere cooking wine, but also not Grandpa’s vintage
private collection

·Take a sip

·Insert CD or
connect iPod. The preferred music is something along the lines of Andrea
Bocelli. This is a must to set the stage. Nothing too sad or melodramatic:
tears affect the taste of the sauce

·Chop the onion.
The finer the better, basically because if your kids are dead-set against them,
you can disguise it and they won’t know the difference

·Sip some wine,
and keep sipping during stages of preparation unless forming part of the
instructions

·Chop the garlic.
With this it is paramount to be very fine. Large chunks can catch the guest by
surprise and cause either a face that would crack mirrors or a spew. If it is
one of your in-laws, you will never be able to come up with an excuse good
enough

·Chop the basil.
It doesn’t have to be to fine, but small enough that all the natural aroma is
set free

·Rosemary the same
as the basil. The reason I use fresh as opposed to the dried variety, is because
the dry one doesn’t soften when cooking and, well, it just isn’t cool when you
find one twig in the middle of a mouthful of delicious food

·Chop the zucchini
or courgettes or baby marrows into rings. The thickness is up to you, but it
should show when you slice the cooked lasagna later

·Finely chop the peppers.
NOT chilli peppers, sweet peppers

·Place a pot on
the heat and drizzle with olive oil. Virgin, extra virgin, seed blend: it
depends on personal taste. If you have a gas cooker, especially a Smeg, I am
jealous

·Take a sip of
wine and turn up the music as this is where it all turns into culinary foreplay

·Brown the onion
and garlic in the pot. They should turn a yellowy brown. If it is way brown,
oops, clear it from the pot and chop another. As the onion turns transparent,
add the peppers

·Once browned
nicely, add the mincemeat or ground beef. Try and make sure that it doesn’t
form compact pieces like small meat balls. It should be loose to give the sauce
a smooth texture

·By now your glass
should be empty. Pour another

·As the meat
starts to cook, add the basil and rosemary. Stir it in nicely. Salt and pepper should
be added at this stage. For those adamant about not cooking with salt and
allowing the guests to add their own later…it’s kinda difficult when the dish is
layered. Pepper should be corns ground with a mill and not the powdered variety

·During this
process, sip more wine

·When the meat is
almost cooked and starts to brown in areas, add the tomato paste or puree

·Stir it in nicely

·Sip

·Add the zucchini

·Sip

·Stir the lot
together until the zucchini is evenly spread

·Pour in half a
bottle of wine. Yes, half a bottle. And depending on the size of your wine
glass, that should mean your first bottle is toast

·Drown the pasta
layers in a flat dish with warm water. Try not to let them touch each other as they may be
stubborn when trying to remove later. Also, don’t use the dish you will finally
put the pasta in unless you dry it properly first. The water will mess with the
taste

·Enjoy the music
and savour the wine

·Bring the meaty
wine mixture to the boil and lower the heat to let it simmer. All the flavours
and textures need to marry in the pot, and this also gives you time to finish
your glass and pour another

·If you are not a
usual wine drinker, calm down because you will soon start twirling while giving
your rendition of what Bocelli should sound like. Twerking is frowned upon and
doesn’t quite go with opera. If you are like me, just close your eyes and let
his voice sooth your soul

·Inspect the pot
and make sure the wine has reduced enough that you hardly see any liquid

·Take it off the
heat

·Sip

·Pause

·Sip

·In a saucepan,
prepare a basic béchamel or white sauce. I will not dictate how you make it as
recipes differ and I rarely follow them. Personally, I do mine with butter-milk-flour
way. For those that have never made a white sauce before, here is a
link. This recipe uses parmesan cheese in the preparation which adds a little
extra tang, but it is not necessary as it can be hellishly expensive. I also
use chicken spice instead of nutmeg

·That was tiring,
so finish your glass

·In an oven tray,
lay the first line of lasagna sheets so that they overlap slightly. Some people
put the meat sauce first, but I just find that having the pasta on the bottom
kind of keeps the meal ‘solid’ and doesn’t allow the base to flatten when you cut
the first slice

·On top of the
lasagna, pour on a healthy portion of meat sauce and smooth evenly. Add a thin
layer of white sauce. Oh, and by the way…cooking is creative freedom so
you can experiment with the white sauce by adding ground pepper to turn it into
a pepper sauce. Or grated cheese for a cheese sauce…

·Seeing as you get
the picture, you can reward yourself with another glass, but that would depend on
your spouse or partner as you will need to open the next bottle. I don’t have
that problem

·Once you have
layered the lasagna enough and to your own satisfaction, finish it off with a
final layer of white sauce and sprinkle the grated cheese on top. The common
cheese used is usually cheddar or gouda, but feel free to use whatever you
want. For creativity when presenting the meal, I usually sprinkle a bit of
paprika to break the overpowering yellow of the cheese, and you can garnish
with chopped parsley

·Bake in the oven
at around 180 Celsius or around 350 Fahrenheit until just before the cheese
burns

·While it
comfortably develops into a meal that will impress most guests, sip, and sip some more

5 comments:

Dang, that looks delicious! I've never made lasagna like that before, but it looks great. Of course, with all of that wine I'd be drinking I'm sure if I tried to make it and messed up I wouldn't know the difference. :D Great post, Mario. :)

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Mario Saincic was born in 1970, and has a passion for life. Starting off in restaurant kitchens and ending up as an architectural designer, he has managed to turn his creativity into a career. Writing is one such desire, and since the release of Infirmity, there is hardly a day that goes by without characters sitting around discussing their lives with him.
"Inspiration appears at the strangest of times, and we need to embrace it."
His desire in life is to be as perfect an example to his kids as his father is to him.